Effects of dietary supplementation of acidifier as an alternative to antibiotic growth promoter on feed consumption, feed conversion ratio and economics of broilers chickens

An experiment was conducted to study the effects of dietary supplementation of acidifier as an alternative to antibiotic growth promoter on feed consumption, feed conversion ratio of commercial broilers. The experiment was conducted for a period of six weeks on 192 straight run day old commercial broiler chicks which were distributed randomly to 6 treatment groups consisting of 4 replicates with 8 chicks per replicate. The treatments were: T₁ control (No antibiotic and no organic acid), T₂ ration contained bacitracin methylene disalicylate (BMD) @ 50g/100 kg feed, T₃ ration contained coated sodium butyrate @ 200g/100kg feed, T₄ ration contained coated sodium butyrate @ 400g/100kg feed, T₅ ration contained esterified sodium butyrate @ 200g/100kg feed and T₆ ration contained esterified sodium butyrate @ 400g/100kg feed. The total feed consumption during the overall experimental period, i.e., from 0–6 weeks of age (TFC_0–6) fed with T₁, T₂, T₃, T₅ and T₆ rations was significantly (P<0.05) higher than T₄ but did not differ significantly from each other. The feed conversion ratio of birds at 6^th week of age (FCR_0–6) fed with different treatment rations were non-significant. Return over feed cost (Rs./bird) of different treatments did not show any significant difference among each other except in T₄. Coated sodium butyrate at the inclusion rate of 0.2% may serve as a good alternative to antibiotic growth promoter.